


i'm a fighter, i'm a champion (but i'm hanging up the gloves)

by iphigenias



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 14:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12134604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphigenias/pseuds/iphigenias
Summary: “That sounded almost wise,” she says, instead of,I’m sorry I took your lion. “Who are you, and what have you done with Lance?” Instead of:I wish I could make it right.





	i'm a fighter, i'm a champion (but i'm hanging up the gloves)

**Author's Note:**

> /tfw ur stressing over a group assignment that's due in 2 hrs so u write mindless fluff for ur fav bi babes as a distraction. on that note, happy bi week! allura and lance are both bi and if u hate allurance solely because it's m/f then ur biphobic lol
> 
> title is from 'i'm stuck' by noah cyrus

Allura’s knuckles are bleeding. She hadn’t even noticed at the time; piloting Blue always takes her full concentration. But her collision with the Galra cruiser was brutal, jolting her bones against the hard casing of her paladin armour, so it’s no surprise to find herself black and blue once they return to the castle. The bleeding knuckles are a surprise, though.

“You look like you’ve gone one too many rounds with the punching bag,” a voice says from behind her, startling her out of her thoughts. She turns. Lance is framed in the doorway of Blue’s hangar, looking not at Allura but at the lion instead - his lion. Her lion? It’s all still a little confusing.

“A punching bag?” she queries, stretching out her fingers and watching the way the dried blood cracks between them, wounds opening up again, fresh and oozing red. Lance walks over, helmet under his arm, and comes to a stop beside her. He reaches out and takes her hand in his, gently turning it this way and that to survey the damage.

“You know,” he says. “Boxing. They don’t have that on Altea?”

Allura looks away. “They didn’t, no.” If Lance notices her shift in tense he doesn’t press it. She tugs her hand from his grip. “Nothing a tick or two in a healing pod won’t fix.”

Presumably Lance rolls his eyes; she can hear the fond exasperation in his voice. “Healing pods aren’t a cure-all. Sometimes we have scars for a reason.”

She looks back at him. He’s gazing up at Blue now; her particle barrier is up and the distance between the two is made all the more pronounced by the blue paladin armour Lance still wears. Allura wants to look away again. She can’t. There’s a guilt eating away at the inside of her that she knows she has no right to feel. Red chose Lance. Blue chose _her_. The past is the past and their choices and their choices and Allura still feels like she’s taken something precious away from Lance by piloting Blue. The look on his face does nothing to convince her otherwise.

“That sounded almost wise,” she says, instead of, _I’m sorry I took your lion_. “Who are you, and what have you done with Lance?” Instead of: _I wish I could make it right._

Maybe Lance hears the words behind the words because he looks at Allura, smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “All I’m saying is sometimes we need a reminder of where we’ve been to show us the right way to go.”

Allura glances down at her hands. At the blood, dark red and sticky against the protrusions of her knuckles. The blood had stuck fast to the inside of her gloves. She’d almost torn her skin off removing them. “I have plenty of reminders of where I’ve been,” she says quietly. “Everywhere I go I’m reminded. I think giving up my scars is a small price to pay, if it’s any price at all.”

Lance hums thoughtfully. “Have I ever told you about home?” he asks, and Allura looks up at him, caught off guard. Lance mentions his family from time to time but he talks about them the same way Allura thinks about hers: like it’s an open wound that won’t quite scar over. Ironic, considering. She shakes her head.

“It’s beautiful,” Lance says, closing his eyes and tilting his head back. “You’d love it there. The ocean’s always so warm, even in the winter, and on a clear night you can see the stars for miles. Me and my sisters used to sneak out after bedtime to hunt mermaids in the rock pools beneath the cliffs.” He opens his eyes again. Sighs. “I wish I could tell them I’ve seen a real-life alien mermaid. They’d be so jealous.”

“You will tell them, Lance,” Allura says softly. “You will go home, I promise you. And perhaps… perhaps you can show me. One day.”

Lance crooks a smile at her and it makes her heart skip a beat; a new and unknown sensation, it terrifies her. “The mermaids?” he asks, tone light. Allura smiles back; turns to face Blue so she won’t be caught blushing.

“Home,” she says, and the wounds on her knuckles throb in response.


End file.
